Abstract
Despite the clear clinical significance of frailty in surgical populations, there
is no consensus on how best to define or measure frailty, even within the geriatric
literature.
A diversity of measures exists to measure some or all these domains, but only research-focused
tools have been validated in surgical populations. These tools are too resource-intensive
for rapid, cost-effective, preoperative screening of entire populations considering
elective surgery.
This narrative review deals with the definition of frailty and the different assessment
methods of the phenotypic definition and the accumulation of deficits definition.
Moreover, as in the area of surgery frailty seems to be an independent risk factor
for mortality, morbidity, length of stay, and postoperative complication, different
studies reporting the association of preoperative frailty with postoperative outcomes
after cancer surgery and the association with postoperative mortality within 30 days
are considered. Preoperative care
should include a focus on the goals of treatment and care options. Patient-oriented
functional and cognitive outcomes as well as the development and implementation of
interventions that could potentially improve adverse postoperative effects must be
further investigated.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 03, 2023
Accepted:
March 2,
2023
Received:
March 1,
2023
Publication stage
In Press Journal Pre-ProofIdentification
Copyright
© 2023 Elsevier Ltd, BASO ~ The Association for Cancer Surgery, and the European Society of Surgical Oncology. All rights reserved.
